This week, Trump has said Musk would have to "close up shop and head back home to South Africa" if he halted government subsidies to his companies, and then later added that his administration would "have to take a look" at deporting Musk.

Joe Gebbia, a confidant of the technology billionaire and a Tesla director, is also a leader of the federal cost-cutting team. The fight might put him in a bind.

The billionaire, whose ties with the president have frayed in the past month, attacked GOP lawmakers backing the Trump’s spending bill while boosting its critics.